That Monday Faith left work early for a dentist appointment. She’d gone to the same family dentist since high school. She had attended Sweet Hill High School with Dr. Brown’s goddaughter, Teeny Roberts. Contrary to what her name might indicate, Teeny Roberts wasn’t teeny. Considering Faith’s own impressive size, she was not one to cast aspersions either. Teeny was a member of the high school wrestling team and the biggest bully to come out of the Sweet Hill public school system since ever. Truly, training her in wrestling might have been an irresponsible move on behalf of the coaching staff as far as Faith was concerned.

Teeny had been an equal-opportunity bully. All kids, boys and girls alike since kindergarten, had been subject to her wrath at one time or another. Still, Faith smiled as Dr. Brown shared the fact that Teeny had just had her fifth baby. She had married Bobby Landers right out of high school and it appeared they had spent the next seven years steadily procreating.

The irony, of course, was that Teeny had used Bobby Landers as a punching bag all through elementary school. Apparently she had been harboring a secret crush on him all these years. One could assume she’d found a healthier way to convey her ardent love, since the two of them were married now and working toward populating the world. Figured. Even Teeny Roberts had found the love of her life.

Faith talked around his hands in her mouth as he asked about her family and work and dating life (because everyone seemed to think that was ripe ground for conversation). In the universal way of all dentists, he seemed to understand all her answers.

Her mouth felt clean and new again as she drove across town to her house, making one stop along the way to pick up her dry cleaning. “Is it true you’re dating that nice Brendan Cooper?” Mrs. Smitty, the owner of the dry cleaner, asked as she handed over Faith’s clothes.

Faith winced. Mrs. Smitty happened to be sisters with Nora Blattenberg, who owned the Sweet Hill Recorder and, naturally, spent a lot of time at the courthouse. Of course, as a reporter, Nora would be privy to all of the gossip that went on in that building.

“We did have a date a week ago.” She nodded politely, remembering that Mrs. Smitty had been a friend of her mother’s and had brought over dinners for months after her mother passed away—long after everyone else had moved on with their own lives and forgotten about the grieving Walters family.

“Ah, I reckon he took you someplace nice. Such a gentleman that man! And so handsome! Where did you two go?” She leaned forward expectantly, her eyes bright as she waited for Faith to spill all the details, and Faith dutifully answered, including what they ordered and how much the restaurant charged for iced tea. As far as Mrs. Smitty was concerned, a three-dollar iced tea was criminal.

Half an hour later, Faith extricated herself, promising to attend the annual boosterthon spaghetti dinner. Mrs. Smitty’s nephew played football and they had dreams of making it to state this year.

North wasn’t in the backyard. His bike was gone. As she pulled into her driveway (thankfully vacant), she noticed North’s side gate was wide open. She’d never noticed it open before. North was always mindful about that. Maybe the meter reader had come by and left it open.

Emerging from her car, she hesitated. She looked left and right up the quiet street. No one was outside. Only a few cars were even parked in driveways. Everyone was either at work or school this time of day. The neighborly thing to do, the right thing to do, would be to close the gate for him. He surely had all kinds of valuable things in his backyard shop.

Slamming her door shut, she crossed his side of the driveway and walked into the yard, her heels sinking into the soft grass. She grasped the edge of his open gate door. Instead of shutting it, however, and sliding the bolt into place, she hovered there thinking, biting her lip in contemplation.

She sent a glance over her shoulder as though she expected him to appear. Which was unnecessary. She would hear the motor of his bike pulling into their street. He would not magically manifest out of thin air.

Maybe it was the fact that she was home by 2 p.m. and she knew he wouldn’t be home anytime soon.

Maybe it was because he spent hours working in that shed and she simply felt compelled to make sure her neighbor wasn’t running a meth lab next door.

Hey, it could happen. If a well-respected chemistry teacher could turn into a meth cooker, then anyone could.

She snorted and stifled a laugh. Obviously last summer’s marathon of Breaking Bad still left its mark on her.

She tried to tell herself it was just about self-preservation. She was a lawman’s daughter, after all. And she was a social worker. Investigative instinct ran in her blood. The more she knew about him the better. The more she knew about him, the more at ease she would feel. And contrary to what her brothers and dad wanted, she was not selling her house and moving, so she needed to do whatever she could to feel more at ease.

The reality was . . . she just wanted to know what kept him so occupied in the backyard. She wanted to know what made him tick. She wanted to know him.

All that considered, she really didn’t intend to go fully into his yard.

She just wanted a closer glimpse of his workshop. But then she saw that the door to the shop was wide open. Wide open and beckoning to her. An invitation she couldn’t refuse.

With one last glimpse over her shoulder, she scurried across his freshly mowed yard. She noticed he was good about that. His grass never got overgrown and there wasn’t a weed in sight. He took care of his yard and home.

She stopped at the threshold of his shed and peered inside. Something large sat in the middle of the space. She angled her head, trying to make sense of the object in the midst of various machinery and equipment—all things she couldn’t even identify by name. She wasn’t good with knowing about tools and mechanical things.

It was large and made of different-colored metals. She stepped inside and walked around it. It was art. Very modern in sensibility. The central focus was a dog in midleap. There was a striped cat, too, swatting at the dog’s tail. He had used different shades of metal to create the striped effect. It was incredible. Curled at the base was another dog with sleepy, soulful eyes. The legs supporting the piece were several large copper goldfish. It was detailed and amazing. Even abstract, one got a sense of emotion from the expressions on the animals’ faces.

She reached out a hand and brushed it against the warm metal, a breath of awe escaping her.

“What are you doing in here?”

She whirled around with a yelp. North stood there, his big body framed in the hot afternoon sunlight. And speaking of hot . . .

Her face burned at being caught on his property. She felt cornered. The only way out was through him—this big, sexy man who filled her with far too many naughty thoughts.

“I—I—”

“Did you just walk into my backyard?” he asked evenly, that deep voice of his reverberating in the hot, still air of the shed.

She stammered some more. “N-no. The gate was open and then I saw that the shed door was open—”

“So you decided to trespass?” He stepped closer and the air just felt thicker, the space tight, his body bigger.

“I decided to be neighborly and—”

“And take the opportunity to snoop around?”

“No!” Yes. That was it exactly.

They stood there, neither budging. Silence stretched. She gazed uncomfortably into the dark brown pools of his eyes and shifted on her feet. She motioned lamely to the metal sculpture. “You built this.”

He didn’t respond to her noncomment, and that only made her feel all the more lame. Although, he wasn’t indifferent. A muscle feathered along the cheek of his strong jaw.

“It’s amazing,” she added. “Beautiful.”

He turned to stare at what he had created and some of the tension ebbed from his shoulders. “Yeah?”

“Yes. It really is. Is it for . . . you?”

“A veterinary clinic commissioned me to do it.”

He got paid for creating sculptures? For his welding? How many people could say that? And this guy had spent almost half his life in prison, no less.

She shook her head, marveling. He was more . . . so much more than she realized, and then she felt slightly ashamed. She didn’t really know anything about him. That being the case, she shouldn’t have such preconceived notions of who he was. She prided herself on being open-minded. On her job, she’d seen people with all odds stacked against them turn their lives around. Of course, she’d also seen the dregs of humanity just slide lower.

“That’s really . . . impressive,” she said.

He looked back at her, his gaze sharp. “You sound surprised,” he said flatly.

She winced. “No,” she started to say. “It’s only—”

“I can count, too. All the way to one hundred,” he continued, his voice cutting. “I know my letters and everything.”

“Look, we don’t really know each other, do we?” she snapped. “Why shouldn’t I be surprised?” She motioned to the sculpture. “I can’t do anything like this. I don’t know anyone who can. It’s a surprise because it’s incredible. Maybe you shouldn’t be so defensive,” she accused.

His lips pressed into a flat line, apparently digesting this.

“It’s a compliment,” she added. “That’s all I was trying to do. The gracious thing to do is to accept it.”

After a long moment, he nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

He was slow to move, but he finally did, stepping closer to her, a great wall of living heat coming at her. “That doesn’t erase the fact that you trespassed.”

She swallowed. “Er, yes. Sorry.”

“It’s just there’s lots of dangerous equipment in here.” His eyes rested on her face even as he motioned around him with one hand. “And the space is . . . tight. And filthy.”

She stared at his mouth, hearing those last words and suspecting he wasn’t talking about his workshop anymore. He reached a hand between them and touched the thick silk ribbon dangling from the collar of her blouse. Her breath caught at the proximity of his fingers to her breast. “A nice clean thing like you could get dirty.”

She swallowed again. “I won’t come on your property again.”

“Oh, you can come over any time. I just want you to know what you’re getting into when you do.” Okay, he definitely was talking about more than her stepping foot into his shop.

Her face warmed and she remembered his earlier words. He’d charged her with drawing a line in the sand. It was up to her to cross it.

He dropped the ribbon and stepped to the side, suddenly all brisk business as he waved her to pass. “Thanks for closing my gate . . . even though you have yet to do that.”

She sniffed and smoothed a hand down her skirt. “I would have.”

“Right.” He grinned and her stomach did that heady flip-flop.

She stepped past him quickly, making sure they didn’t brush each other. Not touching North would be the smartest thing she had done all day. Far smarter than snooping around his backyard and discovering there was, in fact, much more to North Callaghan than she could ever have imagined.